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Background: We chose a set of candidate single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) to investigate gene-environment interactions in three types of cancer that have been related to air pollution (lung, bladder and myeloid leukemia). Patients and methods: The study has been conducted as a nested case-control study within the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition cohort (409 cancer

Bacterial proteins that bind to the Fc part of IgG have found widespread use in immunology. A similar protein suitable for the isolation and detection of human IgA has not been described. Here, we show that a 50-residue synthetic peptide, designated streptococcal IgA-binding peptide (Sap) and derived from a streptococcal M protein, can be used for single-step affinity purification of human IgA. Hi

Background: Bloom syndrome (BS) is characterized by mutations within the BLM gene. The Bloom syndrome protein (BLM) has similarity to the RecQ subfamily of DNA helicases, which contain seven conserved helicase domains and share significant sequence and structural similarity with the Rep and PcrA DNA helicases. We modeled the three-dimensional structure of the BLM helicase domain to analyze the str

The antigens of the Cromer blood group system reside on decay accelerating factor (DAF), a protein belonging to the regulators of complement activation family. The blood group system consists of eight high-incidence antigens and three low-incidence antigens. The molecular basis for the antigens is known and, with the exception of IFC, each antigen is the product of a single nucleotide polymorphism

In time hopping impulse radio, N-f pulses of duration T. are transmitted for each information symbol. This gives rise to two types of processing gains: i) pulse combining gain, which is a factor N-f, and (ii) pulse spreading gain, which is N-c = T-f/T-c where T-f is the mean interval between two subsequent pulses. This paper investigates the tradeoff between these two types of processing gains in

This report summarizes the projects in the course History of Control given in the spring of 1996. There was a standard project whose purpose was to give some perspective on the recent developments of the field through study of the contents of the major conferences in Automatic Control. Some students also suggested their own projects, development of an interactive representation of the history of c

Quantitative determination of staphylococcal protein A in plasma is often hampered by the interaction between protein A and immunoglobulins. In human plasma, these interactions may not only involve the non-immune binding to the Fc or Fab regions of Ig but also antigen/antibody interaction by specific antibodies directed against protein A. In this paper we describe a method which can be used to qua

Objective To detect possible sources of bias in ultrasound prediction of gestational age. Subjects and Methods Using the Swedish Medical Birth Registry, 571 617 women were identified who were delivered between 1990 and 1997 and who had obtainable information on last menstrual period and expected date of delivery according to ultrasound. Results Male fetuses were more likely than females to be judg

Background: Despite several decades of experience with atrial pacing, many centers do not apply this mode to any greater extent, mainly because of concerns for the development of future atrioventricular (AV) block or atrial fibrillation. Recent studies have emphasized possible negative effects of right ventricular stimulation, even when AV-synchrony is preserved, and have thus given rise to renewe

"The Second Mistake" (TSM) is to think that if an act is right or wrong because of its effects, the only relevant effects are the effects of this particular act. This is not (as some think) a truism, since "the effects of this particular act" and "its effects" need not co-refer. Derek Parfit's rejection of TSM is based mainly on intuitions concerning sets of acts that over-determine certain harms.

The ion photon emission microscope, or IPEM, is the first device that allows scientists to microscopically study the effects of single ions in air on semiconductors, microchips and even biological cells without having to focus the beam. Reported here is a prototype, the size of a conventional optical microscope, developed at Sandia. The alpha-IPEM, that employs alpha particles from a radioactive s

Approximately 30,000 spinal injuries occur in the United States every year. Injuries to the spine and its contents affect predominately young, healthy individuals and are a major cause of disability, with significant socioeconomic consequences. The main cause for spinal injuries is blunt trauma, most commonly caused by motor vehicle accidents, followed by falls and sport injuries. Already, in the

A single impurity inside a resonant tunneling diode is used to perform tunneling spectroscopy on an adjacent electrostatically defined vertical quantum dot. This results in tunneling between two zero-dimensional systems, measured as a set of sharp peaks in the current-voltage spectrum for finite bias. Magnetic-field-dependent measurements show that the angular momentum of the tunneling electrons i